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California power sector emissions fall almost 8% YoY in 2024

Carbon Pulse - 1 hour 33 min ago
California electricity sector CO2 emissions fell nearly 8% year-on-year (YoY) in 2024 to reach historic lows as the share of renewables generation grew, state data published Thursday showed.
Categories: Around The Web

A deadly bird flu strain is headed for Australia – and First Nations people have the know-how to tackle it

The Conversation - 3 hours 33 min ago
Indigenous peoples have been largely excluded from the federal government’s planning for the arrival of H5N1. When will this change? Nell Reidy, Research Fellow, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University Bhiamie Williamson, Research Fellow in Disaster Resilience, Monash University Vinod Balasubramaniam, Associate Professor (Molecular Virology), Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
Categories: Around The Web

Australian nature: if our laws don’t radically change, environmental degradation will continue | Adam Morton

The Guardian - 3 hours 43 min ago

This country has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted – but what has happened in this term of parliament is remarkable

There is something significant missing from most of the political and media discussion about the Australian government’s promised, and now abandoned, nature protection laws: the environment. Logically, it should be a focus of the debate. In practice, it barely gets a look-in.

This would be an extraordinary state of affairs were it not so familiar. Australia has a long history of taking its unique wildlife and landscapes for granted, stretching back to European colonisation. But what has happened in this term of parliament is a pretty remarkable extension of that.

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Categories: Around The Web

VCM Report: Credits from African soil carbon project hang in balance to further knock market confidence

Carbon Pulse - 4 hours 45 min ago
Confidence in the integrity of the voluntary carbon market took another blow last week after a court ruling threatened to invalidate credits from the world’s largest soil carbon project, amid continued low prices across the sector.
Categories: Around The Web

LATAM Roundup: Ecuador, Peru boost access to international markets

Carbon Pulse - 4 hours 46 min ago
Both Ecuador and Peru announced measures last week that could facilitate access to international carbon markets – specifically, Article 6 and the CORSIA UN international aviation offsetting scheme.
Categories: Around The Web

Denmark moves to compensate CO2 tax burden on fisheries until 2030

Carbon Pulse - 5 hours 38 min ago
Denmark will help its fishing industry with costs expected from a domestic CO2 levy introduced at the start of this year, according to a government release Monday.
Categories: Around The Web

UN monitors asteroid with a tiny chance of hitting Earth

BBC - 5 hours 41 min ago
The asteroid named YR4 has a 1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Categories: Around The Web

Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico | Greg Grandin

The Guardian - 6 hours 21 min ago

Environmental disasters have plagued the water body for decades. Now the region is thrust in the global spotlight

The enormous semi-enclosed bay, its waters flanked by the Florida and Yucatán peninsulas and partially blockaded by Cuba, has been called the Golfo de México for centuries, a name that first appeared on a world map in 1550. And for centuries the name bothered no one.

Thomas Jefferson used the name without shame, even as he, Donald Trump-like, imagined dominating nearby nations. If the US could take Cuba, Jefferson wrote in 1823, it would control the “Gulf of Mexico and the countries and isthmus bordering on it”. Country music stars, no less than founding fathers, liked the romance of the place. Tracy Lawrence dreams of a Gulf of Mexico filled with whiskey. Johnny Cash wanted to dump his blues down in the Gulf.

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Categories: Around The Web

Greenland ice sheet cracking more rapidly than ever, study shows

The Guardian - 6 hours 37 min ago

Crevasses increasing in size and depth in response to climate breakdown, Durham University researchers find

The Greenland ice sheet – the second largest body of ice in the world – is cracking more rapidly than ever before as a response to climate breakdown, a study has found.

Researchers used 8,000 three-dimensional surface maps from high-resolution commercial satellite imagery to assess the evolution of cracks in the surface of the ice sheet between 2016 and 2021.

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Categories: Around The Web

Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising, study suggests

The Guardian - 6 hours 43 min ago

Research looking at tissue from postmortems between 1997 and 2024 finds upward trend in contamination

The exponential rise in microplastic pollution over the past 50 years may be reflected in increasing contamination in human brains, according to a new study.

It found a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024. The researchers also found the tiny particles in liver and kidney samples.

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Categories: Around The Web

Senior carbon trader leaves Trafigura

Carbon Pulse - 6 hours 49 min ago
A senior figure at Trafigura’s carbon trading desk has left the company, Carbon Pulse has learned.
Categories: Around The Web

Austria needs 5-7 mln tonnes of carbon removals per year to reach net zero, official says

Carbon Pulse - 7 hours 33 min ago
Austria’s carbon management strategy, including public funding programmes, will not be impacted by ongoing government coalition talks and will remain in place unless laws are being changed, an official has said, outlining that the country could need as many as 7 million tonnes of carbon removals per year to achieve its climate goals.
Categories: Around The Web

85% of asset owners take steps to integrate biodiversity into sustainability strategies -report

Carbon Pulse - 7 hours 42 min ago
Around 65% of surveyed asset owners and managers worldwide have incorporated nature and biodiversity into their sustainability strategies, while a further 20% plan to do so, according to a report released last week.
Categories: Around The Web

Thailand’s voluntary carbon market sees jump in prices, modest volumes

Carbon Pulse - 7 hours 43 min ago
The average price of carbon credits traded under the Thailand Voluntary Emission Reduction Programme (T-VER) in the last quarter of 2024 saw a rise of about 40% from the previous quarter, according to official data released Monday.
Categories: Around The Web

UN-backed forest monitoring platform launches blue carbon reporting module

Carbon Pulse - 7 hours 48 min ago
A global forest monitoring initiative has released new blue carbon reporting guidance, the organisation said last week.
Categories: Around The Web

EU, China launch biodiversity monitoring initiative

Carbon Pulse - 8 hours 23 min ago
The EU and China have launched a four-year project aimed at improving biodiversity and climate monitoring by combining artificial intelligence (AI) with ground and remote sensing data.
Categories: Around The Web

A manatee: Imagine eating lettuce under water | Helen Sullivan

The Guardian - 8 hours 42 min ago

Manatees don’t have incisors or canines, only ‘cheek teeth’. No hair, only whiskers. Algae growing on their backs. Everything is gentle

A manatee looks like every animal I have ever tried to make with play-dough: roll a big piece into a sausage, flatten a bit on either side with your forefingers, and a bit at the end with your thumb. Hey presto. A manatee also happens to be the grey of all Play-Dough colours mixed together.

Imagine eating lettuce underwater: the crunch, the squelch. Reading about manatees, I finally give in and look up what the word “prehensile” actually means, as in a giraffe’s prehensile tongue, a monkey’s prehensile tail, a manatee’s prehensile lips. What could these things have in common, you wonder, for 25 years. Then it is time to find out.

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Categories: Around The Web

Peru names two voluntary carbon standards to national registry

Carbon Pulse - Mon, 2025-02-03 23:20
Peru’s Ministry of Environment (MINAM) has identified two voluntary carbon market (VCM) standards and four methodologies eligible for inclusion on the national carbon registry launched last year.
Categories: Around The Web

Why are gen Zs deserting garden centres? Maybe they’re more into planting than shopping | Claire Ratinon

The Guardian - Mon, 2025-02-03 23:09

They can be joyful and important social spaces, but a new generation of customers runs a mile from the shelves of plastic and chemicals

When I first heard that garden centres are facing a wave of closures, I immediately thought of the one around the corner from where I live. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, the car park was full and the cafe was bustling with people my parents’ age and older, chatting over milky coffees and slices of cake. The retired ladies who talk to me in the gym changing room love to come here for a jacket potato after their aquafit class.

Yet, as I stepped through the automatic doors, the plants weren’t immediately visible. First, I had to pass a bright deli counter, an area filled with homeware and crockery, shelves of fragrant toiletries, and a section of children’s toys before anything remotely connected to gardening came into view. I waded through gloves, power tools, pesticides and outdoor furniture, and then, finally, I found the annual bedding plants and potted shrubs. Here, all was quiet. The gardening section was quite unlike the busy cafe; I was alone but for one member of staff.

Claire Ratinon is an organic food grower and writer

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Categories: Around The Web

WRI calls for biodiversity markets to fund conservation

Carbon Pulse - Mon, 2025-02-03 23:03
Stronger biodiversity-related markets are needed to help drive financing towards nature, as carbon markets are falling short of expectations, the head of the World Resources Institute (WRI) has said.
Categories: Around The Web

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